Chapter 8
But the real spoiling was smaller.
He removed all the blue dinosaur cereal bowls from the kitchen because the sight made me unable to eat.
Two weeks later, when I asked where they were, he brought them back without saying I had changed my mind.
He learned not to touch my shoulder from behind.
He kept ginger candy in every car.
He sat outside the bathroom while I vomited because I could not tolerate being watched.
He sent everyone away on Owen’s birthday and let me spend six hours making the ugliest dinosaur cake in North Carolina.
Then he ate three pieces.
He never told me to move on.
Never said Owen would want me to be happy.
Never used my unborn baby as proof life was giving me something back.
He understood the new child did not replace the dead one.
That was when I began falling in love with him.
I hated myself for it.
Ethan had been in jail eleven weeks when he requested to see me.
I refused.
He sent letters.
I returned them unopened.
Then his attorney filed a motion demanding information about my pregnancy.
Ethan wanted parental rights.
When Roman’s lawyer told me, I laughed until I cried.
“He killed one of my children.”
“The law hasn’t convicted him yet,” attorney Margaret Vale said carefully.
“He wants the other one?”
“He wants leverage.”
Roman stood at the window.
“What leverage?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Claire inherited assets from her parents. Ethan waived claims under their prenuptial agreement, but a child creates another angle. Custody, support, estate claims.”
Roman turned.
“So he killed Owen because Owen could expose the affair, and now he wants to use the unborn baby for money?”
“We cannot say that legally yet.”
“I can.”
“Roman.”
Margaret’s tone sharpened.
“You can say nothing publicly.”
He stared at her.
Then at me.
“What do you want?”
It was always that question.
Not what he wanted to do.
What did I want?
“I want him convicted.”
Roman nodded.
“Then we make him survive long enough for court.”
The trial began five months later.
By then my stomach was round.
Vanessa was still missing.
Ethan entered the courtroom in a gray suit and looked almost exactly like the man I had married.
That disturbed me more than if he had looked monstrous.
Monsters should look different.
They should have something visible warning ordinary people not to marry them, trust them, have children with them.
Ethan still had the same blue eyes.
The same careful hair.
The same little crease beside his mouth that appeared when he concentrated.
Owen had inherited that crease.
I hated Ethan for that too.
The prosecution played the recording.
Jurors cried.
Ethan did not.
His defense argued he had frozen in panic.
They argued the sentence about Owen telling me had been taken out of emotional context.
They said parents react unpredictably during emergencies.
May you like
Then Ethan testified.
That was his mistake.
